January 13, 1991 | SARA FRITZ and WILLIAM J. EATON, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The Democratic-controlled Congress, closing ranks behind President Bush at a crucial moment in American history, voted Saturday to authorize U.S. troops to attack Iraq as early as Wednesday. Bush's victory was decisive and bipartisan, even though the authorization was strongly opposed by the Democratic leadership and most aspirants for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many Democrats abandoned their party leaders, and Republicans were nearly unanimous in support of the President.

After a year of internal divisions and military diversions, serious planning is underway within the Bush administration for a campaign against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The administration expects to complete a long-delayed Iraq policy review by the time Vice President Dick Cheney makes his nine-nation Mideast tour next month, so that he can outline American plans to Arab leaders, according to senior U.S. officials. Any denouement in Iraq is still a long way off, the officials insist.

The phone call came to the royal palace in Kuwait city just before 4:30 a.m. It was Princess Mariam Saad al Sabah's brother-in-law. "You have to leave the palace. Go to the summer house," he said when she reached over to her bedside table and picked up the telephone. "He had no time to say why," she recalls. "All I knew was, he is a calm person, and at that time his voice wasn't calm. We left."

An unmanned American surveillance aircraft was lost early Monday over southern Iraq in an incident that could mark the first success in Saddam Hussein's 10-year effort to down the allied planes that patrol his territory. Pentagon officials said the RQ-1B Predator, which failed to return from an early-morning mission, might have been shot down or might have crashed because of a malfunction.

Despite the heavy hand of the Iraqi invaders, Kuwait city is a lawless capital of increasing desperation, according to refugees who have reached the safety of Bahrain. Only in the past week have Iraqi police officers been deployed on the city's streets, said one refugee who arrived in Bahrain over the weekend. "Very few people are venturing out of their homes," he said. "The looting continues--some by the Iraqis, some by Arab and Asian workers. They even hit the Pizza Hut."

Speaking softly in a voice that often broke, an American-born woman who fled Kuwait after the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion told members of Congress about the scene at a hospital there: "We took our cousin, who was in labor, to Sabah Maternity Hospital. Upon our arrival, we saw a Kuwaiti woman at the front door--in hysterics, because she was in labor and they (Iraqi troops) would not allow her to enter," said Deborah Hadi, pausing to fight back a sob.

White House officials Wednesday denied news reports that a Commerce Department official, Dennis Kloske, has been fired after publicly blaming Pentagon and State Department officials for failing to block exports of high technology to Iraq in the months preceding the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. The incident was the latest in an intensive round of Washington finger-pointing over who will get the blame for the Administration's refusal to clamp down on trade with Iraq before the invasion.

If the United States and Iraq go to war, the U.S. military plans to unleash a relentless air campaign designed in part to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership by targeting President Saddam Hussein, his family, his senior commanders, his palace guard and even his mistress, according to senior U.S. military planners.

Following is the text of the letter that President Bush wrote to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Jan. 5. The letter was refused Wednesday by Iraq's Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz when Secretary of State James A. Baker III tried to get him to deliver it. Aziz said it contained language inappropriate for correspondence between two heads of state.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "is still a menace" a decade after the Persian Gulf War, President Bush said Thursday following a close attempt by Baghdad's military to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane. "We're going to keep the pressure on Iraq," Bush said at the White House when asked by reporters about Wednesday's attempt to hit the high-flying U-2 using a Russian-made antiaircraft missile.

Iraqi television reported Wednesday that a U.S.-British airstrike killed 23 people during a soccer game, but U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that if there were deaths, they were probably caused by Iraq's own "misdirected groundfire." The state-run Iraqi News Agency said allied planes attacked Tall Afar, about 230 miles northwest of Baghdad, the capital. It did not say when, but it said the victims were buried Wednesday. Eleven other people were reportedly injured.

Although Iraq's traditional allies on the Security Council have pushed for years to ease sanctions on the country, now that change is in the air, they are suddenly dragging their feet. Russia, China and France said Tuesday that they need more time to consider new proposals introduced by Britain and backed by the United States to end the ban on exports to Iraq except for goods that could be used for military purposes. The U.S.

Despite millions of dollars in U.S. aid, the leading Iraqi opposition group has proved so hapless in making use of the money, accounting for it, finding recruits for Pentagon training and preventing its own fragmentation that the State Department is searching for alternatives. The Iraqi National Congress is also now so out of favor in the Arab world and in Turkey that all but one of the states bordering Iraq have made clear to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other U.S.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in his first appearance before a congressional foreign relations committee, reiterated firm U.S. support for Israel and Taiwan on Wednesday but stopped short of embracing new policies advocated by some lawmakers.

Iraqi officials were unmoved Tuesday despite Washington's declaration that it favors easing the United Nations' decade-long sanctions on Iraqi civilians. In the second day of talks with the U.N. aimed at breaking a two-year stalemate, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's notion of "smart sanctions" proved that the U.N.'s current policy was "stupid."

It wasn't the quicksand that was so frightening. Or the sandstorms. Or the oil pipelines that loomed suddenly out of the blowing sand. It was the tanks. "We were afraid the tanks would fire at us and that would be it," said Bassam Mohtady, an American who, with his 8-year-old son, crossed the Kuwaiti desert in a caravan of vehicles led by a local Bedouin guide. "It was like cat and mouse in the desert," added Mohtady, 34, who arrived with his son, Sammer, in Boston on Sunday.

Fourteen Americans, part of a sudden surge of more than 50 captive Westerners freed by Iraq, arrived Tuesday evening in Jordan, relieved to be out of Baghdad but concerned about the people they left behind. The release of more French, British and Finnish detainees was either completed or in process. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's current hostage strategy is expected to peak today with a decree freeing all French civilians, estimated to number 400, held against their will in Iraq and Kuwait.

An Iraqi newspaper on Monday threatened Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for abetting U.S. and British airstrikes on Iraq, as Israel and the United States began a Patriot missile exercise reminiscent of the Persian Gulf War. About 11,000 Iraqis marched Monday in the capital, some burning American, British and Israeli flags and carrying banners declaring that "aggression will not scare us and sanctions will not harm us"--the latest in daily rallies since Friday's attack.

The scope of Friday's airstrikes on Iraq may have sent a strong signal about the Bush administration's resolve to squeeze the regime of Saddam Hussein, but Washington also may have played directly into the Iraqi leader's game plan. At its heart, Hussein's strategy in the decade since he was forced to retreat from his invasion of Kuwait has been to make Iraq appear a victim rather than a villain.